Also

I've recently found the best way to entertain oneself in a thoroughly distracting manner is to watch the final hour of Dune while having no idea what is going on. It's similar to attending a piece of performance art - you are confused, but fascinated at the same time.

Dagnabbit!

So my big trip to Destin has been canceled due to stupid Hurricane Gustav, and because my whole family is evacuating (wisely, I might say), I can't even go to NOLA to visit them. This hurts somewhere deep inside I will try to ignore for a little while.

Anyway, can those of you who are also in NOLA, but are not my family please find a way to keep in touch so I don't worry about you too? I know this thing is too far away for us to even speculate now, but I can't stop the memories of how difficult it was to find everyone after Katrina, and I figured preemptive notice may help.

I know at least one of you will not be evacuating due to part ownership of 53,879 dogs. Should the worst happen, I would appreciate if you could find a way to let me know you and yours are okay. If you need my cell # again, email me.

I can't stop wanting to share

From de-noted:

Brilliant!

After all my whining about last Sunday's LOCI season finale, I am ready to eat crow, because that was some of the sickest, most brilliant, out of nowhere shit I'd seen on television in a long time. I'm almost sad Warren Leight waited this long to impress me (though I really could have done without the flashbacks, and not because I had seen the episodes before, but because I thought they were pretty weakly inserted). Over at the VF blog, James Wolcott agrees with me (with spoilers):

The dramatic peak of Sunday night's viewing wasn't the submersive emotions dulled from rusty disuse on Mad Men (which more and more seems like a simulation exercise) but the phenomenal season-end arc climax on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, in which all of the pieces were cleared from the chess board in an Oedipal showdown between Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio) and his mentor, played with seedy, reedy panache by John Glover, dressed in the stained white of a disreputable Southern lawyer. The psychic clash of Goren's sunken-vessel misery and Glover's glinty-eyed dementia against the bluish confines of the interrogation room elevated the series to an existential plane without losing the edge of glee that comes from actors seizing the electric moment. (I also enjoyed seeing Ilana Levine, whom I met on the set of Robert Altman's Tanner '88, in the early scenes with Goren's ravaged brother, played by Tony Goldwyn.) Taking Goren back to tainted zero (no mother, no brother, no mentor, no nemesis, and a dead serial killer for a father), It sets up the next season of Law and Order: CI beautifully upon return in November, when--in the other partnership--Jeff Goldblum's ostrich head will attempt to fill the spot vacated by Chris Noth.

I too look forward to what is now in store for season 8.

Make me Laff

Over at Bookshelves of Doom Leila and her husband plan Philip Seymour Hoffman's next movie.

And if any of you have an opinion about sex in stories, feel free to comment. But first, you may want to read my post (and comments) about it on my livejournal.

I have nothing else to add. I've been writing. PORN! Actually, NOT!porn!, as you will see by my post.

At least it's not a blogthing

Your result for The Director Who Films Your Life Test...

Ingmar Bergman

Your film will be 61% romantic, 31% comedy, 38% complex plot, and a $ 41 million budget.

Your life will be portrayed on film as an intense psychological drama, likely with some actresses screaming at the camera (Persona), or maybe a pleasant chess game between the Grim Reaper and a Crusader (The Seventh Seal). This Swedish director's films are intensely scrutinzed and studied in colleges all over the world to this day. This means that most Americans still don't understand his films! Still alive, he released in the U.S. in 2005 his first film in 23 years (Saraband), and he can still take on one more project to make your film biography. If curious, start with his films Wild Strawberries and Smiles of a Summer Night.

Take The Director Who Films Your Life Test at HelloQuizzy

Friday (not) Frivolity

When I'm not whining about my life, or reading and writing PRON, or, you know, working, I'm entertained by the internet.

I am a happy ending junky. Mostly because I've long ago accepted the fact that we're all going to die. Life doesn't really get a happy ending, just quiet acceptance--if you're lucky enough to figure it out. Or if you, like Michael Keaton in My Life, know ahead of time and have the money and resources to make pithy educational videos about yourself. So yeah, happy endings are nice. They don't have to be syrupy sweet, but I rarely complain when the guy gets the girl or the heist is pulled off with a minimum of casualties. But of course, movies with happy endings never truly examine what happens after (that's what fanfiction is for). Luckily, we have Cracked.com' s The 6 Most Depressing Happy Endings in Movie History to inform us:

Back to the Future - while the movie wants us to cheer Biff becoming a menial laborer for the McFlys as a nice bit of karmic comeuppance, we can't help but think that it's a bad idea to give a house key to the guy who once tried to rape your wife.

~~~~~

How is it the Joker kicked so much evil ass in the Dark Knight? Why do I keep reading fandom secrets in which little girls (and possibly boys) post pictures of Ledger's Joker with the words "I'd So Totally Hit That" scrawled over his face? Why do I find most superhero movies boring? io9 attempts to answer these questions with an excellent commentary about the rise of mediocre villainy in Why We Deserve Better Villains:

The problem of villain suckage is endemic in heroic narratives, where villains get redeemed, become sympathetic, or lose their menace too easily.

My favorite reasoning:

Good villains make great stories. A truly chilling villain makes the hero seem more important because the stakes are important, and the hero's actions matter.

~~~~~

Why do I--a quasi-intellectual spiritual seeker that can find as many reasons to defy an organized religion as follow it--read the God's Politics Blog? Because it seems politically aware Christians are less afraid to point the finger (just as Jesus did) when Big Government stomps all over people. I get more news from this blog than I do almost anywhere else. What I truly love about them is they offer steps beyond praying and finger-pointing, and instead offer actions, contacts, and steps one individual can take to help right wrongs. In a recent article, The Jungle in Postville Affects Us All, we are reminded the action and inaction of everyone can make a difference:

We should also care because "we" are "them." "Our" lives outside of Postville are bound up in "their" lives inside of Postville. Martin Luther King Jr. said: "We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny." The apostle Paul said: "If one member of the body suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it." Our actions and inactions affect one another. Together we must act so honor can replace the suffering of us all.

~~~~

And finally, fans of the movie Soylent Green my be unaware it is based on a book, or that there is so much more to this story than "Soylent Green is people!!!" Now is your chance to find out in a beautiful reissue.

~~~~

Okay, not so finally because I realize this was way less frivolous than I wanted. So for those who've always suspected there was something fishy in Batman's relationship to Robin, I offer you my tasteless comic panel of the day:

On to another obsession

Thanks to Music Wench and Google Alerts, I now have even less of an idea what is going to happen this Sunday on the LOCI season finale.

Here, I try to break it down with my filters off:

I am a little concerned about the promise of repeated shockers. One of the aspects of the past two seasons I've liked the least is the constant reveal, timed just so to keep the viewer on her toes, but mostly doing little more than not allowing me to digest what I'm being shown before a second "Huh?!?" kicks in. Plus, in one hour of TV (roughly translated into 44 minutes), there's only so much that can happen. I'm afraid this will be too reminiscent of "Purgatory," the second-half opener, which relied too heavily on deus ex machina (or just plain coincidence) to keep the dramatic tension high and resolved nothing while making little to no sense.

And yes, apparently Nicole Wallace is back. Which is a shame. I don't understand why, with everything else that's going on in Bobby's life [to recap, for those who don't know: recently dead mother after a bout with cancer and life-long battles with schizophrenia- who right before her death revealed she wasn't certain if Bobby's father was the bastard he'd known or someone even worse, drug- and gambling- addicted brother, nephew on the lam from the law (thanks to Bobby's interferance), issues within his work environment (everyone but his partner thinks he's a nutjob), and issues with his own stability (he's possibly a nutjob)]. So to bring back The Nemesis (think Moriarty to Bobby's Sherlock) seems a bit of overkill. Plus, in the episode "Great Barrier" we saw Bobby finally able to move beyond Nicole's manipulative mind-fucks, and any return she's made since then has felt false and unnecessary.

But here's the teaser that kills me:
given her murderous ways of the past, what happens with Nicole is not at all what you would imagine

OMFG, if he has sex with her, I'm going to enter his fictional universe and fucking kill him.

Other than Nicole's return (who is, uncharacteristically, going after everyone close to Bobby - which makes me want to ask her, "Really? You are some mad genius who can apparently get anyone to do anything you want them to, everyone wants to fuck you, and you, after almost 3 years still carry a vendetta against one cop? So you return to the one city with cops gunning for you, where you have a warrant out for your immediate arrest for kidnapping and the like, to settle this vendetta? How much of a genius are you?"), there is also something shocking in a box (shades of Se7en, anyone?), and everyone's a suspect for something (Please, please, baby Jesus, let it be for killing Nicole).

The article gives little else away, but promises it will be bizarre. I don't know that I'm looking forward to bizarre. I don't watch this show for the bizarre, the weird, the deluded crap that they've been trying to feed us on and off for the past 2 years. But watch it I will.

I am looking forward to John Glover's return as Declan Gage.
I am looking forward to having some loose ends tied up (one thing that was promised).
I always always look forward to seeing Vincent D'Onofrio do what he does best.

If I survive Sunday night, I will let you know what I think.

In something completely unrelated: I GOT MY SPACED DVD SET! I GOT MY SPACED DVD SET! NEENER! NEENER!
Okay I'm officially a dork. But I'm a dork for Simon Pegg. And one of the most infectiously watchable geek-love British television shows ever. Trust me when I say there has been nothing on American TV that rivals this. My affection for it goes far beyond my love of Pegg (who made it a point recently to state in his blog that he's 5'10", not 5'9", as related by IMDB, which for some reason I found adorable), and extends to each character and quirk we meet. I had to buy this set the same way I have to buy books I love instead of borrowing them. There's just something in the ownership of a thing. As if perhaps by owning the DVDs, I have some unique priviledge or knowledge - and free passes to that special club.

So I will spend my weekend leading up to possible mind-fuckability completely engrossed with Tim, Daisy, Mike, Brian, Marsha, and Twist (and Colin) in a world that exists just a slight distance out of my reach.

For Keyser (Rosebud) Soze

In honor of Nicholas Cage's hair.

My favorite quote:
Somewhere on a ranch in Montana, a horse cries silently when it wakes up and realizes its tail has been removed so it can be used as an accessory on Nicolas Cage's head.

Remember, folks, no matter how bad life gets, at least you are not Nicholas Cage.

I lied

You Are a Crossword Puzzle

You are well read, and you have a good head for remembering facts. You are a wordsmith. You have a way with words, and you're very literate. You are a mysterious person who enjoys dropping little clues every now and then.

What Kind of Puzzle Are You?

Don't make me mad!

Really, this is the last one.

Is it Friday yet?

You Are Scissors

Sharp and brilliant, you can solve almost any problem with that big brain of yours. People fear your cutting comments - and your wit is famous for being both funny and cruel. Deep down, you tend to be in the middle of an emotional storm. Your own complexity disturbs you. You are too smart for your own good. Slow down a little - or you're likely to hurt yourself. You can cut a paper person down to pieces. The only person who can ruin you is a rock person. When you fight: You find your enemy's weak point and exploit it. If someone makes you mad: You'll do everything you can to destroy their life

Are You Rock, Paper, or Scissors?

Medium

Another one. I am, apparently, medium.

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have medium extroversion. You're not the life of the party, but you do show up for the party. Sometimes you are full of energy and open to new social experiences. But you also need to hibernate and enjoy your "down time." Conscientiousness: You have medium conscientiousness. You're generally good at balancing work and play. When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done. But you've been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it. Agreeableness: You have medium agreeableness. You're generally a friendly and trusting person. But you also have a healthy dose of cynicism. You get along well with others, as long as they play fair. Neuroticism: You have medium neuroticism. You're generally cool and collected, but sometimes you do panic. Little worries or problems can consume you, draining your energy. Your life is pretty smooth, but there's a few emotional bumps you'd like to get rid of. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is high. In life, you tend to be an early adopter of all new things and ideas. You'll try almost anything interesting, and you're constantly pushing your own limits. A great admirer of art and beauty, you can find the positive side of almost anything.

The Five Factor Personality Test

I have no new content

So I did a blogthing, via Music Wench. I actually had a hard time with this one. Usually, I have trouble picking an answer because none of them match. But this time I had to narrow down several choices and pick the best one. Not quite sure I agree with the answer.

You Are the Guru

You are a naturally good counselor. You are inspiring, encouraging, and compassionate. You are eager to help everyone who crosses your path, even those who don't want to be helped. You are a natural healer. People feel at peace when they are with you. You are so good for people, in fact, that they go through withdrawal once you're gone. You quietly do your own thing, without openly resisting. You secretly try to fix every problem. Your biggest regret is not being able to help as many people as you'd like.

What Role Do You Play?

Welcome to the world, Baby Sofia! (now with pics!!!)

Dear newest member of my heart,

There are many things I could tell you about the world you've been born into. It's kind of a mess right now, but that's pretty much always been the case. The world I was born into in 1969 was also a mess. The world your maternal grandmother was born into in 1946? Also a mess. But you'll be okay in this messy, chaotic, precarious world because you were born into a family that refuses to give into this mess and never has.

I don't need to tell you about how much love you're going to experience. You'll see that for yourself, for there will never be a time in your life, whether you are hours or decades old, when you will not be loved, hugged, cheered over, or coddled. Enjoy it. It is a strange experience to go out into the world one day and see other families aren't like yours. You were loved before you were even named. You will be loved until you die. And that love will be fully passionate, unconditional, a little suffocating, and more beautiful than anything you will ever encounter. I'm not here to tell you about the love.

Here's what I can tell you:

You have the coolest fucking aunt on the planet. I know this because I've known her for her entire life. She is my cousin, sister, and goddaughter. She is so full of awesome, it vibrates out of her into those around her so they feel a little more awesome while in her presence. I have experienced this first-hand, so I know of which I speak.

You also have the most amazingly fantastic grandmother ever. She was my coolest fucking aunt, so I'm a little territorial, but I'm willing to share. You will grow hearing her laugh and it will be the most beautiful sound you know. Hopefully her irreverent sense of humor won't embarrass you too much, for it is a priceless, bawdy, sharp-witted thing you should treasure.

You have cousins. You won't understand that at first. You may think (as your aunt did of me) that they are your friends, there solely to play with you. Enjoy that. It will make you feel as precious as you are.

Your grandmother of awesome and your (not friends) cousins of fabulosity.

If you manage to inherit your father's good nature and your mother's drive and hard-headedness, you will most likely end up running the world. Either way, you will certainly have a charming-killer smile, a load of sweetness, intelligence, and an almost genetically imprinted understanding of the value of family.

Speaking of families: yours is huge. As in epic huge. It is multi-generational, multi-cultural, multi-continental. And no matter how crazy we may drive each other, we also never let petty problems shut us down or tear us apart. We also laugh. A lot. I am looking forward to hearing yours.

Yesterday, while I sat 500 miles away from your mother, I was called by no fewer than 5 members of your family with updates as to your arrival (1 cm, 3 cm, 6 now! she's at 10! she's at 10!). To say I wish I could have been there is a vast understatement. In all honesty, after the fifth (but not final) phone call telling me of your curly black hair, I burst into self-pitying tears because I couldn't see you right away. You are the first baby born into this family I haven't been present for in 10 years. Hopefully one day, should you decide to have one of your own, I will be able to make it up to you by waiting with you.

Welcome to the family, Sofia. I am your second cousin, though in Greek tradition that would make me your aunt. For the record, I have no set name or title. Your cousin Nicky calls me Diana; your cousin Alex calls me (insisted upon, actually) Aunt Diana; your cousin (by marriage) Emma calls me Aunt D; your by-proxy cousins Ben and Jack call me D.

You may call me whatever you want.

Rest now. We'll meet soon.

In the Kindom of Geeks, the Dork will be Queen

I found this shirt on ebay. I wanted this shirt. I WANTED THIS SHIRT.

Front:

Back:

Apparently, a lot of other people wanted it as well. It went to my maximum bid. Which I raised. Twice. When the Goddessdster wants something hard enough, she fights for it.

My heart literally jumped in my chest and squirmed itself about a little when I found out I won.

I need a life.

The thing that got me to laugh today (aside from K.S.'s comment on previous post)

The book I said I would not again write about has generated as much buzz as I'd assumed, BUT FOR TOTALLY DIFFERENT REASONS! And I have to say if I ever met Stephenie Meyer, I would probably shake her hand for being the first Mormon to make millions of dollars from writing crackfic.

Take an hour out of your lives (instead of the 36 it would to read the actual 700,000 page book) and read this hilarious (with commentary) break-down. Or just skip to the end:

And they sexed happily ever after in their magic cottage while their half-vampire toddler slept in the next room, and it was the best series starting with a teenage girl in love with a mysterious boy in her class that ended up with a teenage girl defending her growth-accelerated mutant hybrid baby from an ancient clan of evil vampires with her magical psychic shield that I ever read, THE END.

Now you want to read the whole thing, don't you? Admit it.

ETA: Kudos to the first person who reads the whole thing and finds the Hot Fuzz reference.

I hate this

Sorry about the TMI, but I am so fucking sick and tired of feeling so...tired and sick.

Wanna know why I so easily slip into obsession mode about fictional places? Because my RL...well, it doesn't suck, not really. There are many fine and wonderful elements to it that I wouldn't give up for the world. But those not-so-wonderful elements seem to be what takes up the majority of my psyche these days. And I don't quite know how to deal with those elements because they're all in my face and they're clawing at my insides and I feel fucking pathetic. So instead of dealing, I bail. I live in another world that is as unreal as mine is real and for a few days I can breathe.

I have done this my entire life. I used to think I was crazy, but now I see it as a very necessary coping mechanism. If I didn't drift out, I would most certainly go crazy, and not in some genteel way, but in a full-out dead-monkey-in-my-bedroom way. Just look for William Holden in the pool; I'm fucking ready for my motherfucking close up.

And none of this has anything to do with why the top of my head is going to blow off, or why if the phone rings one more time I'm going to just burst into tears--not of pity or fear or sadness, but pure unadulterated anger; I cry like a baby when I'm pissed as all get out, saves me throwing things against the wall. I can't even articulate what has gotten me to this point today. Some of you are well aware of my continuing growing frustration with my work. And I have actually done that mature thing and attempted to take steps to alleviate it, but none of it helps. I'm not sleeping and my stomach is churning and all I want to do is crawl into bed and slip into some very safe place that has no bearing on reality whatsoever and just exist.

Eventually, I do get tired of it all and face the world again.

But for right now I just feel like screaming. And I can't really do that here at the office or my very nice coworker will be forced to sing me platitudes until I want to cut out my own tongue. So instead I vent here and put it out there for all 12 of you to read and I lick my wounds and I feel pathetically sorry for myself and I look for more pictures of VDO or Simon Pegg or lolcats or something that will jar me out of this moment right now this one this---

My Simon Pegg post of the day

The man who would be Scotty:

At the Spaced numb-a-thon here in Austin, Pegg disappointed fans by stating he was not allowed to "do the Scotty voice" before official movie promotion began. They will, however allow the Trek teaser posters to be released. Here is Simon Pegg as Scotty (the only reason I think I'll even see this movie):

Hmmm...looks...a whole fuckload like Scotty.

Though he is a cutie with the dark hair:


I still prefer him blond.

All right, enough frivolous crap. Next up: a post of actual substance? Perish the thought!

My Simon Pegg news of the day

If this actually happens, I may have to amp up the respect for Tarantino.


PS, And for Heratic (the pic I couldn't send you) (she know what this is about!):

Because I haven't posted in a few (Friday Frivolity)

Stolen from the crackhouse.

Name a series and I'll tell you the character(s) I would:
1. Bake cupcakes for:
2. Trust with the keys to my car:
3. Put thumbtacks on the chair thereof:
4. Have a crush on:
5. Pack up and leave if they moved next door:
6. Vote for President:
7. Pick as my partner in a buddy movie:
8. Pair up:
9. Vote off the island and into the volcano:
10. Wheedle into fixing my MP3 player

Most of you know what I watch, but be adventurous! Or, be super adventurous and pick a series of books (for my bookish friends).

It is their ridiculousness that makes them funny

What else am I reading?

Over at Think Progress, we are reminded once again what an asswipe our President is. From his 2000 Inaugural address:

“A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam: When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming.”

New Orleanian Blake Bailey reviews Julia Reed's Katrina Memoir, The House on First Street for the NYT:

As for Reed’s Katrina experience — well, strange to say, it made me rather nostalgic for my own. (I’m reminded of what Percy said about the weird gaiety of disaster.) Like Reed and her husband, my wife and I gave a dinner party the night before evacuation, and the next day we wondered what to do with the garbage...

Is Greater Than is a pretty cool online zine. I skim most of the articles, but this one hit a very special secret place in my heart. My heart that owns 52 lipsticks, each of which is a varying shade of one color:

But there is another, hidden allure to beauty products. That allure lies in the heady world of woman to woman bonding, a social phenomenon that often takes place in the context of beauty.

And I had a really really hard time picking a favorite children's book quilt:

Every teacher and pre-service teacher enrolled in Dr. Bergeron’s undergraduate and graduate Children’s Literature courses at the University of Miami makes a child-sized quilt-top inspired by a piece of quality children’s literature. Then, Dr. B quilts their projects and the quilts are displayed at the Lowe Art Museum.

I spent my weekend lost in the world of comic books and graphic novels (yes, I read those too).

Warren Ellis is just never afraid to go there. And it doesn't really matter what there we're talking about. Sometimes I feel it's a bit too much for my - ahem! - delicate sensibilities. Okay, mostly I just find it all a bit more depraved than I really need. Planetary, however, sucked me into a story where, while I may not understand completely what is going on, I am on this journey with Elijah Snow and the rest of Planetary to uncover the secret history of the world.

Minx is a girl-friendly division of DC comics that puts out digest-sized one-shots with girl-centric themes (and is there a way I could have had more hyphenated words in the previous sentence?). The reviews have been mixed overall, but the large variety of titles available (from comics heartthrobs such as Andi Watson, and Brian Wood, and YA girlcrush Cecil Castellucci) at least attempt to guarantee there might be something for everyone. So far I've read 4 of the offerings with mixed reviews of my own. Of course, DC could possibly...maybe increase their girl readership by, I don't know, dialing down the fanboy inspired cookie-cutter female body type? However, at least DC has a female superhero in their Big Three (that would be Batman, Supes, and Wonder Woman for those who don't care enough to ask). Marvel has....[crickets].

Hope everyone had a good weekend. Aside from reading comics, I gave myself a happy by (you guessed it) buying Hot Fuzz. Oh yeah. Oh, and watching an okay LOCI wherein I finally get used to The Beard, but wonder what the wardrobe department is trying to tell us by having Bobby wear that same striped shirt week after week.

Hopefully the last I'll feel the need to write about this series

Over at School Library Journal, UC Davis Professor (who, we're told, is an expert on teen literature) Amy Clarke discusses the enormous popularity of a certain series of vampire romance novels (no, not the Anita Blake series). Most of her answers are not exactly "expert in teen literature" worthy. I have similar answers to these questions, and some different ones, based not on my expertise of teen lit, but my near expertise on teen girls. I do take exception to two of her answers:

Which fictional character would you compare Bella to?
I think that Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennet are more apt comparisons, in terms of the niche Bella fits into—despite the vampires, she is really a romance character. Having said that, I don't think that Bella has the complexity to become a legendary character. She has many good qualities, including loyalty and bravery, but she doesn't dig very deep intellectually or engage moral questions.

I know she's talking niches here, and not character-to-character comparisons, but this just set my mind in a tither. I can honestly see the Jane Eyre, as that novel is a spin on the Beauty and the Beast motif of Gothic literature. And many arguments can be made about Rochester's treatment of Jane being similar to Edward's treatment of Bella. However, let's not forget Jane herself resented Rochester's treatment and went on a quest to seek her identity. She was then able to meet Rochester again as his equal, not by giving anything up, but by gaining her own independence. Bella may wish to be Edward's equal, but it will not be through gaining her independence that this will be attained.

Bella, I believe it goes without saying, is no Elizabeth Bennett. PS, misspelled Bennett, SLJ

What are the educational benefits of this book?
Besides just getting kids to read—and these are real page turners—the books can be used educationally by looking at questions the texts themselves bring up (why are they so popular and is it good for girls to be identifying with Bella?) as well as linking them to other things we might be teaching, like religion and mythology.

Bella's character, what she is modeling for young women, is a good thing to explore. On the one hand, she seems to represent a step backward in terms of role models. She will marry very young, she is willing to exchange her humanity for an eternity with her boyfriend, she gets pushed around quite a lot, and she needs to be rescued frequently. On the other hand, she has redeeming qualities including her intelligence, her willingness to put her life on the line to save her loved ones, and her total acceptance of people society would label monsters.

So...on the one hand, Bella doesn't dig deeply intellectually, but we should celebrate her intelligence?

Hey, I belong to the it doesn't matter what they're reading as long as they're reading school, don't get me wrong. But, compelling as the story is, it's just not good writing. In fact, it is some of the suckiest writing this side of a Harlequin Romance novel. And I just don't see the value of such novels as educational models of any sort. The same mythic/religious connection and themes can also be found in many Charles de Lint novels, which are much better written and have stronger mythos. Yes, discuss these novels in your book club and have the debates. But please, for the love of all that is holy, do not think you can find educational benefits in this series. Unless your educational benefits involve not good writing and how to recognize unhealthy relationships.

And before anyone accuses me of taking this all too seriously, remember I got this from School Freaking Library Journal, not Julie's Super Vampire Love Blog. These books are now a phenomenon. On some level, we should take them seriously.

Okay, truly done now. We are not, of course. That book is coming out tonight. The movie is coming out...sometime (I have no idea). And teh internets will be buzzing about this for some time. So while I am certain I will read much much more about the subject, this will be the last time I post about it. I is tired.

PS, AMC - you will tell me what happens, right? Don't make me read it off Julie's Super Vampire Love Blog.

ETA: I can't believe it took me so long to figure this out. I feel like an idiot. In attempting to assess what it is about the writing and story structure that bug me so much, it occurred to me that this shit is no better than romantic/erotic fanfiction. I'm serious. All the themes and conventions I've come to expect (and - guiltily - sometimes love) in my fanfic (dependence!devotion, over-exposition, hyperbolic descriptions of people) are all here. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find that's where Ms. Meyers got her start. So while I cannot (and never have) state I do not understand the appeal, it still rankles me for many reasons.

(Sort of) Friday Frivolity

More about LiveJournal is crack: there's a community called Fandom Secret which works like Post Secret, but is fandom-centric (I don't have the time or energy to explain what "fandom" means right now, but if someone else would like to take a shot, go for it in the comments). Anyway, I came across one today that I loved (and, in my opinion, had little to do with fandom, which made it refreshing after millions of posts with anime characters in them and random rantings about Dr. Who). Anyway, love Alice, love the artwork, love the secret:


Fellow Fairy Tale Fanatics: Anyone who knows my love of Animal Bridegroom tales can see why I'm interested in this book, but I would love some insight from those who may be in the know as to whether or not I should make the purchase.

Looking forward to Bones: I love this TV show for so many reasons, not the least of which because it stars the luminous Emily Deschanel. The smarts, the chemistry, the character interactions all keep me involved even when the series finale makes me go, "What the F?!?" Unfortunately, I've been reading a few too many spoilers about the upcoming season and I've decided to put a stop to it. No more. I want to be surprised. And a note: Yes, Angela and Hodgins belong together. No ifs, ands, or buts. So stop with the unnecessary plot twists that may tear them apart.


And finally: I send you packing for the weekend with a Return of the Jedi Haiku from Haikuvies

Ewoks overcome
Imperial weaponry
but not fanboy rage